


Dried

by yeaka



Category: Halt and Catch Fire
Genre: Gen, Gen or Pre-Slash, Vignette
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-12
Updated: 2020-05-12
Packaged: 2021-03-03 04:08:51
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 592
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24138628
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/yeaka/pseuds/yeaka
Summary: Donna picks up the slack again.
Kudos: 9





	Dried

**Author's Note:**

> Disclaimer: I don’t own Halt and Catch Fire or any of its contents, and I’m not making any money off this.

No one paid the water bill. The overgrown boys in the living room are too busy screaming over their obnoxious music to notice or care, but _no one paid the water bill_ , and that’s _a problem._ Donna stares at the late notice piled atop a mountain of other bills that Cameron promised she was paying. Donna should’ve known. She should’ve taken it over again, because of course Cameron wouldn’t _actually_ take responsibility for her mess of a company—not when it comes to the nitty-gritty business side, something so separate from the artistic beauty that Cameron seems to think can make up for everything else. It doesn’t. Cameron gets to pursue her dreams because Donna takes care of the rest—the numbers and the money and the absolute basics they all need to survive. 

Lev starts tapping the faucet with a butter knife as though that’s going to magically turn the water back on, and Donna would tell him not to bother, except it’s not like there’s any more damage he can do to the bedraggled sink. The whole kitchen’s falling apart. She’s _not_ going to do their dishes again. 

She’s going to yell her head off at Cameron, even though she tells herself all the time that she needs to be patient with her partner. Sometimes, Cameron’s a third child. A fourth one, counting Gordon. Donna resists the urge to crumple the late notice and instead carts it over to Cameron’s room. 

No one answers when she knocks on the door. That’s typical. Cameron’s probably got her headphones on, blasting worse noise than the Mutineers littered across the rest of the house. Cameron’s closed door usually means _keep out_ , but Donna exercises her executive partner privileges. She shoulders her way in and lets the half-wedged-shut door spring shut again behind her. 

Cameron doesn’t have her headphones on. She is at her desk. She’s flopped over it like a dead fish, head cushioned on the keyboard, messy dyed-blond hair a wreck all around her. She’s snoring softly, her nose typing consecutive ‘F’s across the screen. 

A sigh escapes Donna. She knows she should yell anyway. Wake Cameron up. Make a paper plane out of the bill and hit her between the eyes with it. Except Cameron’s whole setup is such a train wreck that it makes Donna’s heart ache. Frantic scribbles are taped all over the walls, and some of them are genius. Cameron was probably hard at work on something revolutionary before she passed right out. She _does_ work hard, in her own way. 

Donna loathes and loves her all at once. And Donna does love a good piece of code, so she gently cards her fingers through Cameron’s hair and tilts Cameron’s head ever so slightly, just enough to take the pressure off the F key. No need to make Cameron spend hours deleting the single letter later. 

Cameron mumbles something in her sleep that sounds like a forlorn, _“Peanut butter.”_ It shouldn’t be endearing, but it is. 

Donna begrudgingly drags one of the wrinkled comforters off the unmade bed. She drapes it over Cameron’s shoulders. Then she fetches a scrap of masking tape from the wall, dislodging one of Haley’s spaceship doodles for the cause. She sets the doodle next to Cameron’s head to hopefully remind her that there are people counting on them to actually make this business work. Then Donna tapes the overdue water bill to Cameron’s forehead. Mutiny’s corrupted her. 

She leaves quietly and shuts the door, subconsciously humming that one lullaby that Joanie’s always loved.


End file.
